VoLTE is finally starting to roll out on devices, but who uses their phone as a phone anymore? Luckily, there's a next-gen standard for text messages too, and T-Mobile is the first carrier to support it. T-Mobile's CTO just announced support for "Advanced Messaging" on the Rich Communication Services (RCS) standard on T-Mobile, and it's starting its rollout now.

These are the features T-Mobile has built into its Advanced Messaging service.

Rich 1 on 1 and group messaging, including near real-time chat

See when others are typing, when your message is delivered and even read

Share high-res photos and videos up to 10 MB just as you would a regular text message

And T-Mobile Advanced Messaging is built to work across all devices, makers and operating systems—and wireless operators.

So Advanced Messaging will operate a lot more like Hangouts or WhatsApp. Since it's built on RCS, it will eventually be compatible with other devices and carriers (once those carriers add RCS messaging). The first T-Mobile phone with support for Advanced Messaging is the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime, which is launching today. Future software updates to the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy S6 will add Advanced Messaging. There are also "nearly a dozen" more devices slated to get Advanced Messaging support this year.

Like VoLTE, this probably won't be very useful until there are more devices with support. Presumably there will be some indication when you're texting someone with Advanced Messaging, otherwise it falls back to SMS. You will also need an LTE or WiFi connection to use Advanced Messaging. While it's not explicitly stated, I also imagine you'll have to use the system messaging app on your phone to send Advanced Messages for now. The RCS standard should theoretically allow more apps to add support in the future.

Comments

Hopefully this will put an end to the iMessage superiority complex of iPhone users everywhere.

jj14x

Hopefully, this can/will be rolled out to all Android devices, across all carriers, rather than being restricted to 'x' devices on one carrier

Floss

Considering it will probably be 4-5 years before it is common across most Android devices, and will be on all iDevices pretty much day one Apple decides to add it, probably not.

james fuston

That's a bit of an exaggeration, considering Sprint iPhones still don't do VoLTE.

mark

And yet Apple still ends up years behind Android phones on new features. Even 1 new year of Android phones is more iphones than have ever been sold.

(And it won't be on all iphones, as older phones don't get all new features.)

Miku is Best Vocaloid

The green bubble shaming will never end.

TedBell

It may be best to ask "Why does this new technology exist?" To me, this seems like an expensive upgrade at the network level. Also, trying to create new worldwide standards is going to take time for adoption and interoperatability.

The technology appears to exist to solve problems with the T-Mobile network reliably delivering messages on its own network, so it needs to connect to a backup network called "WiFi". If T-Mobile came to your home to setup "WiFi", they'd probably have as many holes as their "professional-grade" network. That's the beauty of WhatsApp and iMessage... If your stuck with a cheap network that doesn't work, you can still communicate.

It's kind of hilarious because you can almost always count on T-Mobile finding a way to ensure messages can't be delivered. But this is new because incompatible standards now exist between phones sold last week by its own salespeople. It takes a lot of cunning skill for a communications company do this and send a bill for the service.

To me, it seems to make more sense to pay the app makers, that have customers and critical mass in the market, to deliver messages reliably when the network fails. Neville should have written a check to WhatsApp or Apple, and called it a day. That'd likely be cheaper than forcing proprietary standards between networks and also device manufacturers, with only one phone that supports it.

The only logical explanation for this is standard is Neville Ray, after 10 years, is still attempting to justify his job of building and managing the world's most coverage-sparse network.

Steve Barry

If it will enable videos to be shared in non-potato quality over MMS, then we might stand a chance. I just had a "discussion" about this with a few iPhone users and how when they share a video over MMS, video quality is horrid. iPhone to iPhone they say, it's flawless. Of course it is, it's not using a standard protocol, it's using one that's only available on iOS.

I explained this is why no one under the age of 30 uses SMS/MMS anymore, it's all Hangouts/WhatsApp or one of the million other communication platforms that aren't OS specific.

I said had that same video been shared through Hangouts, the quality would've been fine, but I'll be honest...I don't know if that's 100% true or not :/

andy_o

Video sharing on mobile Hangouts is only available in iOS :)

Steve Barry

Is that why everyone is clamoring for Hangouts 4.0.1 or whatever is the 'next' one coming? I don't use Hangouts anymore really, so I'm not up to speed on what the latest updates are.

Why "hopefully"? They make a superior messaging ecosystem is that their fault? It's time for other companies to step up and invest in their messaging instead of leaving their customers out to rot. Hell Apple may make an iMessage android app soon then they'll really make google (hangouts team) look foolish.

Godspoken

Oh, trust me, I'm not faulting iMessage or Apple itself. I use an iPhone every day and I love the convenience of iMessage; I think Apple really hit the nail on the head in ease-of-use and adoption rates are basically universal. The pretentiousness of Apple users who criticize Android users whenever they see a green MMS bubble in the face of their own laziness in not downloading a universal messaging solution like WhatsApp or Line is what is annoying.

mark

"Universal" if you're one of the minority with an Apple phone. Not very useful for a messaging service.

Đức Thành

That's what he said.

mark

Superior until they have to ask you what make of phone you have to see if they can messaeg you.

(There are plenty of messaging systems better than SMS, this isn't anything new. The downsides is that not everyone is on every service, and Apple's one is particularly crippled due to only working on the minority of Apple phones. The imessage team already look foolish.)

Bospaddenstoel

'leaving their customers to rot'

Lol WhatsApp nearly a billion users (950+ million) and you say other companies leave people to rot. How many people are on iMessage again? Maybe 200 million, probably less.

c

Why would it? Because T-Mobile users with a handful of select phones have similar features?

MoveOutTheWay

Jeez,another messaging app? By 2025 I hope smartphones are dead and another tech that's minimalist takes over, too much of a headache nowadays.

james fuston

Minimalist tech? In a world where people want your smartphone to control your toaster, I doubt that'll be happening soon.

Brian Menius

Minimalist tech? Like stone tablets?

CoreRooted

What messaging app? This happens in the standard SMS/MMS messaging app. Granted, the stock apps will probably have to be updated to support the advanced features (as many of the stock apps have things like 140 character limits and stuff baked in).

ModernChaot

Small correction, if I may: SMS can carry 160 characters. Twitter is doing 140 only.

CoreRooted

They aren't the same thing? ;) LOL Noted. I always get them confused.

Donatom3

Twitter saves 20 characters so that usernames up to 20 characters can be added in and it would still be one text.

Bospaddenstoel

'Another'. Pretty much 1/7th of the globe uses WhatsApp. Now if only the other 6/7th pulled their heads of their asses and started using it, we'd all be connected.

sid

A similar article in Verge says.. 'T-Mobile is adding imessage features.....'. This kind of attitude is the reason I stopped following verge as much as I used to. AP has been good though all the while. Hope you stay that.

shadowx360

Stopped visiting that site a while ago when I realized they aren't able to give fair comparisons between Apple and non-Apple products. All Android devices seem to have this lag mode that turns on in the hands of a Verge reviewer. Every comparison must end up with an Apple product winning, even if it's just because they "feel" it's better. Their comments section for every single article eventually degrades into people shitting on the other ecosystem their phone doesn't run.

TedBell

Still, it helps in areas where T-Mobile doesn't have a strong signal, or can't invest in the network.

Matthew Fry

Which is weird since the article contents are similar. It's like they're being dicks on purpose.
... They're... like... Apple! /epiphany

asdde

Im okay with what they said since apple owns the mobile messaging scene in america and rightfully so. They had a bomb ass messaging app for a long time. Shame on everyone else. Hangouts/sms are particularly primitive, especially for someone like google who i will hold to a higher bar.

Hangouts/RCS is still not enough so do something now! Its years late already.

How difficult would it be to port it over to other phones? It seems like it's probably just an APK and some small files.

JG

That's what I'm kind of hoping...

I'm a little bitter I can't get any WiFi calling on my Pure Moto X since T-Mobile doesn't officially support it (even though all the code needed to enable it is baked into the OS). I really hope I don't get left in the dust with this ...

Either that, or hopefully T-Mobile decides to support the 2015 X (or maybe the 2015 Nexus)... We'll see...

Erik Knudsen

soo....hangouts functionality?

BC

It feels like Hangouts functionality, hopefully without the ugly aesthetic...I will soon see it once LG phones are supported for Advanced Messaging.

person

I wonder if 3rd party SMS clients will eventually be able to take advantage of this

Michael Williams

Who uses their phone as a phone any more? I do. I do lots of stuff with my phone, more than the vast majority of people. However, it is never going to be a device that also acts as a phone, it will always be a phone that does other stuff.

JD

So SMS will get more advanced functionalty before hangouts.
So bets on when this will reach AOSP. Android Zotz v124 is my guess.

Trenton Seagoe

Can we please for the love of god stop getting the ability to see when messages are read? Sent is okay. But I like to read people's messages and sometimes I don't want to respond to them. I don't want anyone knowing I have seen them. Hence why I text!

Kurt Schultz

No. Stop being a crappy friend and reply to the text.

Randroid

Maybe I saw it but am in a meeting and can't respond immediately. Maybe I'm in the gym, using my workout app, and see their message but don't want to be that inconsiderate a**hole in the gym who's too busy on his phone to actually workout. Maybe I'm driving and have someone read the message to me (or my car reads it to me, as many new models do) but don't want to respond immediately. Maybe I'm out for a run and don't want to text and run, but have time to at least read the message - maybe at a stop light while waiting for the light to turn or stopping for a quick water break

Trenton Seagoe

Maybe I don't have time to respond to the message? Maybe I don't know how to reply. When someone knows for a fact that you have seen their message don't reply to it, it can cause problems. I don't want to deal with those problems.

andy_o

Viber and Whatsapp have options to turn off read receipts, which will make you also unable to see other people's receipts, which is fair. I don't think any of my contacts has turned it off though. 2 apps are not a trend, but they're 2 of the most popular apps. Whatsapp added the option for disabling after they added the "read" feature, after users supposedly complained. IIRC Viber had the disabling option at the same time they introduced read receipts.